Investment Debacle Shifts Tamarac`s Course

January 1, 1986|By Tom Lassiter, Staff Writer

TAMARAC — Revamping the investment policies of the city, the possible merger of the police department with the Broward Sheriff`s Office, the future approach to wastewater treatment in the city and the March elections promise to be the pressing matters of 1986.

And to varying degrees, each issue will be shaped by the pivotal event of 1985 -- the failure of ESM Government Securities Inc., with $7.4 million of the city`s money in hand.

``ESM was a major event,`` said Mayor Philip Kravitz. ``It affected our budget, our investments, our thinking; and changed things in our city by the things we did to get the budget down.

``I believe we will recover the bulk of the money, and that will help the city. The thinking would change if we got the money back,`` he said.

The city is due to recover at least $1.5 million. But a hefty cut of that, as much as $250,000 over the coming year by city estimates, will go toward legal fees, which already have mounted to about $50,000.

The closing in March 1985, on the eve of the city elections, of ESM by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission was cited as causing the demise of an entire slate of candidates whose backers, Concerned Citizens, had engineered a sweep of the City Council elections one year earlier.

That loss and the emergence of a new political alliance of Kravitz, Vice Mayor Helen Massaro, who was returned to office in 1985, and newly elected council member Arthur Gottesman had an imediate impact.

The new majority voted to kill legislation put in motion by the previous council majority that would have allowed construction of a five-story hotel on part of the Sabal Palm Golf Course. The new council also moved quickly to kill an ordinance passed by the previous council that would have allowed four-story condos in the city.

With the ESM incident in mind, the new council majority voted to re-establish the Investment Advisory Board, which had been dissolved two days before the city began investing with ESM in November 1984.

Not surprisingly, Kravitz listed the 1986 elections as a key event of the coming year. ``We get a new council in March, and every council thinks differently,`` he said.

The ESM debacle also resulted in the firing of Finance Director Steve Wood and played a role in the ouster of City Manager Elly Johnson. ``After the election the mayor called me into his office and gave me a list of 27 or 30 items of things he wanted changed. I should have realized then I had a problem,`` Johnson said after he was fired.

It wasn`t an easy year for elected officials, either. Council member Sydney Stein, then vice mayor, was the target of a recall drive by residents, who charged Stein with ``malfeasance and misfeasance in office.`` Stein accused Kravitz of engineering the recall drive, which ended after the organizers came close, but failed to collect the required number of signatures in the first round of the recall process.

The opinions about the proposed merger of the police department with the Sheriff`s Office split along the new political battle lines. The council majority has resisted pressure from the Political Action Committee, which hopes to unseat Kravitz and change the balance of power on the council, to decide the merger via referendum in March.

The merger was proposed by the Sheriff`s Office in 1984 and again in 1985. The Sheriff`s Office claims the city could save $240,000 annually and retain control over its police force, but Kravitz said he thinks that more information and a written contract proposal from the Sheriff`s Office is needed before voters can decide the question.

Similarly, the current council majority has resisted pressure from PAC to ask voters whether the city should build a new sewage treatment plant.

Current city plans call for repairs to the city wastewater treatment plant in conjunction with construction of a deep-well injection system. But whether the city should continue with those plans, construct a new plant or link the city system to the county`s wastewater treatment system, is a major decision to be made in 1986.